Fallen Behind

Catching Up On Farmgirl Fare
It's been a discombobulated sort of autumn around here so far, and I'm feeling a bit scattered. Some comments (and people) and various other things have managed to fall through the cracks lately (mostly while I was away), so I thought I'd try to do a little hodgepodge of catching up here.

First of all, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to all the new visitors to Farmgirl Fare. And if you've been stopping by for a while but have just started leaving comments, I thank you for taking the time to write. I pride myself on personally welcoming everyone to the farm, but I know I have missed some of you lately. Your feedback (both positive and negative) is a valuable and entertaining part of this blog. I really love hearing what you think, answering your questions, and just getting to know you. As you know, I don't get around to writing a whole lot of text-filled posts, but I feel that the comments sections of the daily photos often turn into informative and amusing mini posts themselves.

Name That Sheep Contest Update
The Secret Panel of Judges has been hard at work trying to choose a name for Yellow 21. Your response has been overwhelming; the judges don't have a clue how they're going to pick just one name. (But they are having almost too much fun with this.) The winner (along with a surprise or two) will probably be announced Monday, so you still have time to enter a new name, go back and defend your previous entry, or bash some other names you feel are totally inappropriate. Click here to meet Yellow 21 and learn more about how you can win a sheep.

Book Swap
Last summer, Amy at the wonderful Beauty Joy Food hosted the first ever BJF book swap, and it was a great success. Click here to read the round-up, and click here to find out how you can join in on the fun with Book Swap 2. Sign-ups are going on now.

E-Mailing Me
I know some of you have hunted around Farmgirl Fare trying to find my e-mail address, but it isn't currently posted anywhere. Here it is: farmgirlfare at gmail dot com.

The Pita Project
I know many of you are already familiar with the saga I now (that it is over) refer to as The Pita Project. If you are not, and you like pita bread, click here to read more. It has been wonderful hearing from so many of you who were inspired to make your own pitas after reading about my adventures.

There are also a few recently added comments and questions to the pita post that I would like to respond to:

Beejay, Welcome to the farm! I enjoyed hearing how you made yeastless pitas. Bernard Clayton (whose recipe I used) did say that the steam is what makes them puff so it makes sense that they worked. Sounds like you had a delicious pita party!

Tabehodai, Welcome to the farm to you, too! I would definitely be interested in baking something together, as we both have a DeLonghi Convection Oven, though mine is rather small. I mostly use it to heat up bread or leftover pizza or bake pita chips and pita pizzas. (The link above is to a new model that is identical to mine only larger; it'll hold a 12-inch pizza. I think I may have to trade up.)

Regarding your (not stupid) questions: when you are baking pizza in any kind of oven, you want to bake it directly on the hot stone (or tiles). Let the stone heat up as the oven heats up, and be sure to give it enough time to get very hot (up to an hour in a conventional size oven, less time in a small toaster/convection oven). Never put a cold stone into a hot oven or it may crack.

I wrote more about using baking stones and tiles in the following posts:
Bread Bakers, Start Your Ovens!
Three Onion & Three Cheese Pizza
and Loving Leftover Pizza

Elizabeth, congratulations on making your own pitas. I appreciate your suggestion that I add "let the dough double in size in a draft-free place" to the recipe, but I'm going to leave it as it is since I actually let the dough "rest" for a set period of time (30 minutes) rather than until it doubled in size (which it didn't in the 30 minutes). Also, between the half dozen fans on full blast throughout the summer and the frigid air blowing into our very old house during the winter, I don't think I've ever let any dough rise in a completely draft-free place!

Kitchen Mage, you mentioned using pre-ferments (sponges or starters). I didn't come across any pita recipes that used them, but of course I was too scared to do a pita google search (or I'd probably still be making pitas). I do know that I have tossed a cup of my four year old sourdough starter (straight from the fridge) into everything from Farmhouse White bread to pizza dough, always with positive results. (I never make pizza dough without it now.) This idea has me intrigued; the next time I make pitas, I'll add a cup of starter to the mix and let you know what happens.

You also asked about pairing wine and pitas. I'm no expert, so I'll just give a few brief, personal suggestions. Red wine with pita pizzas. White or red wine with pita chips, depending on the flavor of the chips and your taste. And with warm, unadorned, unpuffed pitas hot from the oven? Champagne!

Summer Harvest Soup For Fall
Last month I posted this recipe for Simple Summer Harvest Soup (made with sweet red peppers and summer squash) which Alanna then featured at A Veggie Venture. Last week Alanna found herself unable to resist the bargain 25-cent sweet red peppers at her local farmer's market, so she once again turned to my recipe for inspiration. However, she managed to come up with this totally different soup (that sounds delicious). Sweet peppers and squash are still readily available in many places (like sitting on my kitchen counter), so it's not too late to try one of our versions--or to improvise and come up with your own. If you do, I'd love to hear about it.

Getting Yourself A Little Donkey
No, I am not holding a contest to give away Dan. Are you crazy? But I know that after seeing pictures and hearing about him, there are at least a few of you out there (like Jamie) who are now hankering to share your life with your own dandy little four-hooved friend.

Unfortunately, Jamie, you are going about this all wrong. You say that you "keep showing my significant other your lovely photos of Donkey Doodle Dandy and telling him I want one of my own, but so far he is resisting the idea." Okay, while I do admire your "I will win eventually" attitude, I fear you have a very, very long wait ahead of you. That is unless you do one simple thing: Take delivery of the donkey while you are home alone. That is what I did, and I plan to do it again just as soon as I find a suitably adorable girlfriend for Dan.

A picture is one thing. The actual donkey is something else entirely. Resistance will be useless. Plus, what is the unenthusiastic naysayer going to do? Your new donkey is already happily ensconced in the backyard! Call someone to haul it away? I don't think so. I hope some of you find this advice helpful. And please don't forget to send me pictures of your new donkeys.

(P.S. When you think about it, this strategy could probably work with all kinds of things besides donkeys. . .)

Coming Up
I had an anonymous request for my homemade pesto recipe and will hopefully be posting it in the next week, along with some information on the types of basil I grow.

And I haven't forgotten that ages ago I promised to share the recipe for my Oatmeal Toasting Bread. I just wanted to give you enough time to familiarize yourself with the Ten Tips For Better Bread first so that your loaves will come out perfect on the first try. Has everyone found a wooden dough bowl?

I also have a pile of half-written posts and a whole stack of other ideas and stories in my head. Some of my favorite cold weather and holiday recipes should be making appearances, too. Of course, all these plans could be waylaid by something totally unexpected. It's happened once or twice before. But you can be sure that whatever does transpire, there will never be a dull moment (and there will probably be pictures). I sure hope you'll join me.